Gaming device manufacturers strive to make wagering gaming devices that provide as much enjoyment, entertainment and excitement as possible for players. Providing interesting and exciting primary or base games and secondary or bonus games in which a player has an opportunity to win potentially large awards or credits is one way to enhance player enjoyment and excitement. Certain known gaming devices use devices such as reels or wheels to enhance the attraction of the gaming machines to players and also to enhance the player's game playing experience.
Many known slot gaming devices include a plurality of reels and one or more paylines. Such gaming devices typically include any suitable number of reels, such as three to five reels, which each have any suitable number of symbols, such as three symbols per reel. In these gaming devices, the player initiates the spinning of the reels by making one or more wagers on one or more paylines. Such gaming devices may have one, three, five, nine, fifteen, twenty-five or any other suitable number of paylines which extend horizontally, vertically, diagonally or any combination thereof. The player wagers on a player selected number or combination of paylines, such as one, two, three, five, ten or fifteen paylines and the reels are activated to spin.
After the reels spin to generate a plurality of symbols, the gaming device analyzes the generated symbols to determine if the gaming device has randomly generated a winning symbol or winning symbol combination on one or more of the wagered on paylines. A paytable determines the award that a player wins if a designated winning symbol or designated winning symbol combination occurs on an activated payline. A line pay award typically is calculated by multiplying the award value for the winning symbol or winning symbol combination by the amount wagered upon the payline upon which the winning symbol combination appears. Such calculated awards are provided to the player.
In conventional slot games, for example, if a player wagers one credit on a first payline and another credit on a second payline, the player has activated two paylines. Making an additional wager activates another payline or increases the wager played on an activated payline. This creates a play of the game having a certain number of activated paylines by a certain number of credits per payline.
Most slot machines are set to pay back on average a certain percentage of the amount of money wagered by players. The average percentage of money wagered that is paid back to the player as an award is sometimes called the average expected payback or average expected payback percentage. The average payback provided by a game is determined by the paytable. For example, in a slot game, a paytable determines the award that will be provided to a player if certain winning symbols or winning symbol combinations appear on an activated payline. In gaming devices played at existing gaming terminals, the paytables and winning combinations of the slot machine are predetermined. Thus, although the actual payback may vary, the expected payback for a game is predetermined and remains constant throughout game play.
Gaming device manufacturers constantly strive to make gaming devices that provide as much enjoyment and excitement as possible. It is desirable to provide new games which vary award returns and risk to increase player excitement and enjoyment.